Monday, 26 February 2018

26th February 2018 Tapan road, Kerinci, Sumatra

We revisited the Tapan road arriving to thick fog. We decided to walk down the road from the ranger station located at the ridge-top. The fog soon started to clear and we were soon watching our first Sumatran Green Pigeons. A little further and our first Sumatran Spangled Drongo was encountered. Dwi explained that only 5 years ago both Blue-masked and Sumatran Leafbirds were both commonly seen species along the Tapan road, but that very sadly, since then they have both been heavily trapped at this site - we were to see neither - it seemed hard to believe that in what appeared a large area of forest two arboreal species could be so effectively removed from the avifauna. We were more fortunate with a third species that is also being targeted by the trappers, as an Orange-spotted Bulbul was encountered, albeit just the one. A small flock of Swiflets were tentatively identified as Edible-nest Swiftlets using the criteria detailed in Eaton et al. (2016). We then heard a Sumatran Peacock-Pheasant calling from the forest. Playback resulted in the bird approaching to probably roughly halve the original distance from us to the bird. There was a small area of forest floor visible in that vicinity so I focussed there but it was never seen to cross. Much to our frustration, probably the three largest and heaviest trucks of the morning then chose that moment to drive past us. The Peacock-Pheasant fell silent and we never heard it again. Having walked to yesterday's Pitta stakeout I was keen to be the first to walk into the gully just in case my most-wanted species for the morning was present - much to my surprise it was - the only species of Forktail that I hadn't previously seen, albeit if the IOC adopts the Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago's proposal to split Javan, there might yet be another to look for... As I was the only one to see the Forktail before it flew upstream we waited awhile and it eventually reappeared. There was no sign of the Graceful Pittas today - presumably our early morning visit the previous day had been essential. We continued to walk most of the way to the bridge where very heavy rain again commenced around 3pm so we again called it a day.